


Inchworm

by Juliepop



Category: Apex Legends (Video Games)
Genre: Gen, sad boy hours
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-18
Updated: 2020-03-18
Packaged: 2021-02-28 22:22:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,735
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23204650
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Juliepop/pseuds/Juliepop
Summary: A song can hold a lot of different meanings to people, and this song just means safety to Elliott.
Comments: 8
Kudos: 33





	Inchworm

**Author's Note:**

> Heeeeeeey, totally haven't been MIA for a long time. Someone sent me a screenshot with that tweet about Elliott knowing how to play piano and this kind of happened. 
> 
> Please excuse any errors, I wrote this in like an hour and a half bc muse struck. Links to the tweet and song are in the endnotes ;)

_**Inchworm** _

_Two and two are four_

For as long as he could remember, his mother always sang him to sleep from a nightmare. Elliott could recall waking up from a dream when he was young, maybe four or five, and having his beautiful mother rush into his room. He was crying, great heaving sobs shaking his body as he babbled through an explanation about a monster coming to get him when his mother swept him into her arms.

Evelyn Witt had sung him to sleep, fingers gently combing through his curls as Elliott tucked against her neck and fell asleep to the soothing voice of his favourite person in the whole wide world.

_Four and four are eight_

When Elliott was eight, he got hurt really bad. It was an accident, his brothers had gotten stuck with babysitting duty, and the youngest Witt was a mischievous kid. He’d snuck into his mom’s workshop in the garage, a place meant to be locked, but some days she forgot to, and this was one.

Elliott had tried to grab something from the tall metal work table, chubby little fingers tugging at the overhanging rag his mother used to wipe off parts she worked with and managed to pull it down.

He also yanked down the array of heavy metal tools laid on top of it, one of the sharper edges of a tool smashing across the bridge of his nose and slicing it open.

He’d fallen backward and screamed, feeling his wet and warm tears mingle with the blood pouring down his small rounded face and alerting his brothers to where he was. Emmett had been the one to get there first, seeing Elliott curled up on the concrete floor sobbing and sweeping him up into his arms with a bark at the other two to call their mom.

The drive to the hospital was a blur, Elliott sobbing about being sorry and having to be sat on his brother Everitt’s lap even though he was too old to be doing that.

They’d gotten him seen right away; the little boy terrified that he was going to be in trouble for getting into his mom’s workshop when he knew he wasn’t supposed to. Except as soon as his mom saw him, she rushed over, smelling strongly of burning steel and the soft undercurrents of cinnamon as she drew Elliott into a tear-filled hug.

He’d needed to get stitches, Elliott recalling how he’d been held on his mother’s lap because he asked while the doctors came at him with needles and scary instruments. His mother had laid a hand over his eyes, whispering it wouldn’t hurt and how he shouldn’t look before she’d begun to sing.

Emmett had sung along too, Elliott relaxing into his mother’s arms as he cried a little but focused on the voices blending together and making him feel safe.

_Eight and eight are sixteen_

When Elliott was sixteen, his brothers died.

He’d answered the door to uniformed men looking solemn, asking very politely if his mother was home and Elliott had known then that something was very wrong. It was like having a boulder push up from your stomach to your throat, Elliott could barely breathe past the lump there as he panicked and called for his mother.

As soon as Evelyn poked her head around the corner, she knew, oil smudged face crumpling as she saw the two men stood at her door, and Elliott had managed to take two steps forward in a bid to get into the safety of her arms when they spoke behind him.

They were very sorry about their loss.

The officials kept talking then, speaking of how the three men in their service had gone MIA on a mission. They spoke of their sympathy and how truly sorry they felt, but all of that fell on deaf ears as Elliott felt his world-shattering. His mother had joined him on the ground at some point, Elliott not even remembering how he got there, the two knelt there caught in the unrelenting waves of grief that seemed to drown them with every passing moment long after the men had left.

Three lives had been taken, in an instant. Elliott had seen his brothers as invincible; they were all so young. It wasn’t fair, none of this was fair. Elijah was never going to marry his girlfriend and have that baby they wanted, and Emmett would never be a doctor. Everett wasn’t ever going to finish the bike he had sitting in the garage, and Elliott felt that like a tear in his heart. His brothers, the men who had taught him so much, were all dead.

Eventually, they got up, zombie-like in their mourning as the two climbed onto his mother’s bed to cry some more. Elliott wasn’t sure who started it, but sure as rain the soft sound of the lullaby his mother had sung to all the boys when they were feeling unwell sounded.

It was a duet, it had always been, and Elliott hadn’t realized it until he was older, and his mom taught him the song on the piano. It was the only song he knew, and the two of them sang it to one another between the tears.

Elliott wished he’d known how often he would sing it later on in his life.

_Sixteen and sixteen are thirty-two_

On his thirty-second birthday, Elliott did as he usually did, woke up early to eat breakfast alone in his small one-bedroom apartment before heading out. The care home nurse smiled when Elliott came by, waving him toward his mother's room with a comment that she was fairing well today but had not gotten much sleep.

It was a better day then.

Elliott rapped on the door sharply before letting himself in, smiling at the sight of his mother sitting on her bed with her hair braided to one side and staring out of the window. She barely reacted to his presence, just watching the birds outside as Elliott took his usual spot at her bedside table.

"Hey ma, you're looking extra beautiful today." Elliott greeted, lips curved up into a soft smile even as he was ignored. The steady drip of her IV was the only sound in the room for a while, Evelyn had been refusing to eat and drink, so they'd had to hook her up to a few things to remedy that. Elliott reached for her hand, feeling how cold it was and quickly stood to tuck a blanket around her.

Evelyn didn't even flinch.

"It's my birthday today, by the way. I know you sometimes forget it, but I thought maybe we could have some cake?" His mother doesn't respond, staring blankly outside the window and Elliott goes back to holding her hand in his. She's still cold, the doctor said giving her IVs for fluid would make it so, and despite the room being so warm, it doesn't help.

She used to reply when her sickness wasn't as bad. Some days they would have whole conversations, Elliott telling her about everything he could and watching as recognition flared in those hazel eyes. Then she slowly forgot more and more, asking him mundane questions over and over in the span of a few minutes, and sometimes she didn't even recognize him anymore. Now she kind of just sat there, coming in and out of her state, but those moments were few and far between.

Elliott still talked though, he told her about his day and what he had for breakfast. He spoke about funny bar stories that happened when he worked, talked about his training that was happening during the offseason of Apex.

He lied and talked about huge birthday plans tonight, saying that so many of his friends had planned something and tried to keep it a secret. He didn't mention he was going to go home after this, eat dinner by himself and go to sleep after he went to the gym.

No one had wished him a happy birthday.

When "lunch" arrives, the nurses bring in the cake Elliott had paid to have sent, two small pieces of chocolate sitting on thin paper plates with plastic forks. Evelyn doesn't react when they set up her actual lunch, the bag of artificial nutrition discreetly tucked away and leading to a tube that had gotten surgically inserted in her stomach. Elliott remains quiet when the care home workers do their job, waiting until the door is closed behind them before he perks up again.

"Hey, our cake is here! I'm not allowed a candle or anything because of oxygen or something, but we can pretend, and I'll make a wish." Elliott says brightly, tucking his chair closer to his mother as he moves the table hanging over her bed closer and starts singing happy birthday to himself. He makes it halfway through the song, voice cracking when the first few tears roll over his cheeks.

"...t-t-to me. Make a wish." Elliott rasps, shoulders shaking with the effort it takes not to just full-on sob as he holds his mother's hand. He pretends to blow out a candle, eyes slipping closed as he whispers his wish. "I wish you weren't sick anymore."

She doesn't react, and Elliott has to press his face against the bed in an attempt to compose himself. His mother needed him to be strong, he was her only living son. All they had were each other, and as badly as Elliott wanted just to curl up and cry, he couldn't. Not when she needed him.

" _Inchworm, inchworm. Measuring the marigolds,_ " A voice sounds softly, almost grating and harsh from disuse but ringing clear in what was a deafening silence. Elliott jerks his head up, tears running down his face as his mother looks out the window but she still sings. " _You and your arithmetic, you'll probably go far._ "

He sobs openly then, hearing her voice for the first time in months, and Elliott breaks down. He shudders, trying to stifle his crying against the crisp white sheets of her bed and a small, frail hand presses to his head, resting there as his mother sings their song to him for the last time.

His final birthday present, before she was gone.

  
  


_Inchworm, inchworm_

_Measuring the marigolds_

_Seems to me you'd stop and see_

_How beautiful they are_

**Author's Note:**

> Song link [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WO60Jmi_t8o)
> 
> Twitter thread [here](https://twitter.com/MannyHagopian/status/1240298283949608963?s=20)
> 
> Got questions? Come yell at me on tumblr [here](https://juliepop.tumblr.com/)


End file.
